Texts throughout the day.
Things like:
Did you eat?
How’s the shop?
You wearing that pink dress again?
Send me a pic of your panties.
He even calls every night.
And not short ones either.
Long calls. With real conversations.
About music.
About my store.
About nothing.
About everything.
And right before he hangs up?
Every single time—he pauses like he wants to say something.
He usually ends with, “I miss you, linda.”
Like it’s nothing.
Like it’s normal.
Like he didn’t just drop a verbal grenade into my chest and expect me to just go to sleep after that.
It’s surreal.
Completely, utterly surreal.
Because this?
This is not how this was supposed to go.
This was supposed to be—one night.
A blip in my life.
A story I tell myself later when I need a reminder that I once did something reckless and lived to tell the tale.
Not this.
Whatever this is.
I rest my chin on my hand behind the counter, staring out the front window at Main Street like it’s going to give me answers. It doesn’t.
Mrs. Delaney walks by with her poodle.